HK-231 continued to fidget with the console as the sounds of battle became ever more distant, the Commandos and Mandalorian standing around him, unsure what to say to this ancient but incredibly deadly Droid of legend and murder. The Droid's two ocular sensors, gleaming with a bright, bloodlust-fueled golden hue, darted to face the Organics as he noticed this.
"I will repeat my inquiry to Master Kal. Would you like me to activate the rest of this facility's Droid forces?" It chimed again.
"Yes. Of course." Kal Skirata replied, the Droid nodding in response as it rapidly pressed buttons and dials, a short beep and confirmation of the order chiming in Mando'a through the console's scattered speakers. As it did so, the Droid stopped its rapid movements and stood up straight, facing his newly christened master and commander.
"All Droids in this facility are now beginning their start-up process," HK-231 stated plainly.
"How many Droids are we talking about?" One of the Commandos asked the deathly clanker standing across from them.
"At the time of my shut-down, this station housed nearly 600,000 Droid units in total, all housed in over 1,000 warehouse facilities such as this. 90% of these units are crew and maintenance Droids, leaving 60,000 remaining units as combat and security Droids such as I. However, due to the losses sustained here, and likely wear and tear that has affected this facility in our absence, it is likely that around 6% of all Droids within this station are no longer in working order." The Hunter Killer droid responded. As it did so, the men were taken aback by this seemingly impossible number.
Kal was the first to speak up, the older and more experienced warrior coming out of his daze sooner than his Clone sons. "Is there any way to activate the Droid forces in this station's sister facility?"
"You mean the crew aboard station Epsilon-23? No. I am afraid not, at least not from this location. In order to do so, we would need to capture the main control room to this station in order to do so. As well as this, in order to send the appropriate signal, we would need to capture this station's fusion generators." HK-231 replied to his master.
Sighing under his helmet, the old man replied to his Droid servant. "Should we prepare for an assault on the generators now then?"
"No. That is a risky and unintelligent course of action. This facility is likely crawling with the enemy we had faced before, and because all com-links within this structure are being jammed, it is highly unlikely I will be able to properly coordinate such an attack. Until A: I understand the threat we are facing with a degree of certainty, B: I am able to establish wireless communications to the rest of the Droid forces under our command, and C: a clear enough path for our forces to enter the generator control rooms is opened, I am unwilling to engage in such a plan."
Kal shook his head in disappointment upon hearing this, he knew they were running out of time. The Imperium could very well be in the process of invading Mandalore as they speak, and without a fleet to back them up, the tide of endless bodies would just keep pouring until every Mandalorian warrior was dead.
"I do believe you can give me information that will greatly assist in dealing with requirements A though, Master Kal. You and your men have appeared to have engaged this enemy numerous times before, and if my given knowledge of Mandalorian warfare protocols and technology is correct, you may very well have numerous recordings of your engagements with this foe." HK-231 said plainly, golden lenses peering at the organic.
"I don't but my men here do, I'm sure they'll be able to give you the combat footage you need."
HK-231 then turned to the Clones standing behind him. "Splendid. Please, hand over all data-chips storing the footage of your engagements with this enemy. They will be returned in short order, as I will quickly analyze the footage."
As he finished, the Commandos begrudgingly removed small, SD-like chips from the back of their helmets, all putting them in the outstretched hand of HK-231 one by one. As they finished, the droid meticulously and robotically placed 3 of the chips on the central console before pushing the one left in his hand into an open slot on his wrist. Minutes passed by as the Droid computerized the visual data stored within, ejected the chip, and started anew one with another one.
When the Droid finished it's task, it slowly handed the chips back to the men stood behind him, the mechanical being slightly surprised by the data he had just collected. Turning back to Kal Skirata, the Droid began to speak yet again.
"Fascinating, truly fascinating. They fight like Jedi as I saw firsthand before, yet their weapons are beyond brutal, and they clearly care not for pseudo-pacifist ideals… Wait, it can't be…" HK-231 trailed off. "Mandalore the Ultimate was correct."
"...What do you mean?" Kal Skirata asked the Droid he stood across from, the ocular lenses of the machine whirring to life as he came to the oh-so-obvious conclusion that was staring him in the face the entire time.
"Is it correct that when you arrived in this system there was no detectable unauthorized spacecraft docked to or around this station?" HK-231 asked pointedly.
"Yes."
"Then he was right, the damned fool."
"Excuse me, but what are you talking about clanker? You're just sounding cryptic here, nothing you're saying is making any logical or meaningful sense." Niner asked the assassin Droid he stood across from.
"Although my formal protocols forbids me from telling anyone without the proper clearance of this, seeing as how Mandalore the Ultimate has been dead for the void knows how long, I will disregard these protocols completely. Tell me, do you understand what stations Epsilon-23 and Omega-34 were constructed for?"
"All I know is Mandalore the Ultimate wanted a fleet here so fuckin big it could conquer an entire sector, the details as to why were never told to any of us and we assumed it had just been lost to time." Kal responded.
"As I thought. Well, the reasoning was quite simple, although I will need to educate you on pieces of history that as you said has been lost to time." The Droid pulled up a holographic image of a map of the Galaxy on the command console, obviously at the time of the Mandalorian Wars.
"Around halfway through the Mandalorian Wars, an invading force of Neo-Crusaders stumbled across an ancient series of ruins on the planet of Garos. These ancient ruins dated back far before even the establishment of the Galactic Republic, and they appeared to have been created around 7,000 years before the time of his discovery. Stranger still was the architecture and the design of these ruins. According to the Ultimate, they seemed almost dream-like, as if they were created with the force of one's mind and didn't obey the laws of the universe itself." As he said this, the map zoomed in onto the Garos system, deep in the outer rim of the Galaxy.
"Most interestingly, and strangest of all however was the discovery that was made within the center of these ruins. Inside were housed 2, nearly a full kilometer in height archways made out of a strange, bone-like material and covered in gems. Stranger still is these archways radiated trace amounts of Hyperspace particles, the existence of these particles in and of itself hinted that these archways weren't just simple decoration, but they were instead a form of transportation for whatever society had left them behind, similar to the old Rakatan Infinity Gates. Because of this, Mandalore the Ultimate ordered research to be conducted on these structures, I imagine I don't need to explain to you why. The tactical and strategic advantage of being able to simply transport armies without the necessary fleet support would have been invaluable to the war effort."
"So what? The Ultimate discovered that this long-lost society made infinity gateways. That would have been beyond useful sure, but if I'm catching on, why research them further? The Kwa pulled that off tens of thousands of years ago, not exactly groundbreaking technology." Atin replied snarkily.
"This is true, but after analyzing the types of Hyperspace particles that radiated off of these monoliths, and the sheer impossibility of the charges they were accompanied with, it became very clear to us that these gateways in their prime, fully functional state, would have made the Infinity Gateways look like childsplay. While the Infinity Gates allowed for near-instantaneous travel, through our research we discovered that these gateways instead functioned by utilizing some unknown form of Hyperspace tunneling, turning swathes of the extradimensional space into safe to inhabit and easily traversable tunnels of space, making this technology essentially a form of invisible and essentially untouchable form of supply-chain. These gates and the tunnels they produced made it theoretically possible to even create bases and cities within."
"After finding this out, and after years of the wars beginning to take a brutal backslide, Mandalore the Ultimate ordered these gateways be excavated and taken to a more secure facility, as the encroaching forces of the Republic neared Garos and other systems near it. As well as this, he did everything he could to keep this research as clandestine as possible, hence the lack of organics in this facility. Initially, the stations we currently reside in were simply built to house and research these structures, but as the war kept getting worse and worse, the Ultimate ordered a vast fleet here to guard the project. Not long after, Mandalore the Ultimate was killed at the hands of Supreme Commander Revan, and the clans soon fell into disarray."
"All operations within this station were canceled, and all Droid units were given a shut-down signal. That leads up to today and the predicament we face with these mysterious attackers. However, I posit that these attackers may not be as mysterious as they seem at first blush. I believe firmly that these attackers are members of the not-so-lost civilization whose ruins the Mandalorian Empire had discovered on Garos. Consider it for a moment."
"The enemy we face has seemed to appear inside this station with no foreseeable way of being here other than the gateways stored in the command centers of these facilities. There has been no fleet presence outside of your own near these stations has you said? While it is possible that an entirely different civilization has gained control of these ancient hyperspace tunnel networks, it is highly unlikely this is the case for two main reasons. 1: Despite our near constant efforts, the facilities here have never been able to successfully keep open one of these gateways, the best minds Mandalore had to offer were only able to open them for split seconds at a time."
"And finally and most damning of all, 2: these attackers seem to have a nearly identical cultural and aesthetic style to the depictions we found in the ruins and on the gateways themselves. The slender bodies, the ghost-like automatons with blank, featureless faces, the symbols, the gems, and the stones, it all points to this one conclusion."
The men stood in silence as the Droid finished his lecture, the mechanical being staring back at Kal, awaiting his response.
"If that's true, we are facing a threat we could have never dreamt of encountering before. HK-231, we need to make preparations to take the generators as soon as possible. When will your Droids have a path cleared to them?" Kal responded, his black visor staring into the assassin.
"Seeing as the forces encountered throughout the station are more numerous and more powerful than previously expected, current statistical projections show the invading forces will be driven back enough to make an attack on the generators within 2 weeks. This is due to the projected number of invader forces, as well as the likelihood of reinforcements arriving throughout projected conflicts."
Kal gritted his teeth hearing this, responding back with another question. "And according to your calculations, how many invaders are we dealing with?"
"Anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 troops in total. Our Droid forces outnumber them almost 3:1, however, due to the theoretical time this enemy has had to dig itself into the station and their rapid ambush tactics, it is unlikely our numerical superiority will mean much until we can dislodge the threat." HK-231 finished as he moved away from the command console, all he had to do there was done and over.
"It's a damn siege." Kal finished as he looked back down the massive main entrance to the warehouse. "Gather what weapons you can carry from the armory here, we will be leaving back to the hangar in 10."